Politics
[Writings,
pp. 265-66]
An
essay from the Herald of Freedom urging abolitionists to refrain from all
participation in politics, on anarchist grounds.
[P]olitical
action is of one spirit and intent with military. The weapons of both are
violence, and the instrumentalities of both, bloodshed and murder.
What is government, after
which all political action is aiming, but an armed battery? What is its voice,
but the report of cannon - its sanctions, but the bayonet and the halter? . . .
It is immoral to strike a man, or threaten him, or to ask the sherriff to do it
for you - or the militia officer, or the governor as such - or the penal
law-maker - or the voter. Moral action is addressed to the moral qualities of a
moral being - and does not act physically on the body and animal senses. There
is nothing reformatory in animal action. The very beasts are injured by this
political sort of corrective and reform.
Good farmers are
learning that there is a better way to treat their cattle than by blows. The
hostler of intelligence and kindness, is ceasing to maul his noble horse. They
are leaving off the practice of breaking steers and colts - for the reason that
it is cruel - undeserved by the horse and, and unworthy of the employer, and
because a whole horse or ox is better than a broken one. Political action is
unfit even for brute animals. Is it fitter for man? Is humanity less
susceptible of moral influences than what we call brutality? A politician is
but a man driver, a human teamseter. His business is to control men by the whip
and the goad. His occupation would be unlawf\ul and inexpedient toward even the
cattle.
Nathaniel
Peabody Rogers